Oct 28, 2022
Magnificent masterpiece by Josef Frank at Modern Art + Design
Josef Frank
”Ap-skåpet” (The Monkey cabinet), Svenskt Tenn, ca 1941
Bukowskis Modern Art + Design presents a remarkable cabinet designed by one of Sweden's most beloved designers, Josef Frank.
This cabinet certainly is a spectacular piece of furniture. As is known today, only this actual cabinet has been executed, with these specific prints and the surrounding partitions. It has been in the same family since the 1940s and has never been on the market. The cabinet is made of mahogany, covered with motifs of 40 different hand-coloured French engravings from Comte de Buffon’s classic work ”Histoire Naturelle” from 1794.
There is a cabinet documented in the Svenskt Tenn Archives: ”Cabinet with prints – model number 1140”. There is also a note: ”Buffon's Natural History, The Monkey Cabinet”. The cabinet in the auction is very unusual as the motifs are all framed into several reserves.
In Sweden, in the year 1937, Frank drew the first cabinet covered with floral posters from the flora of Palmstruch (later flora of Lindman). He came to produce several versions with textiles, leather, maps and, as in this case, Frank used hand-coloured French engravings from Comte de Buffon’s classic work ”Histoire Naturelle”.
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Bukowskis is delighted to have been entrusted with the sale of this cabinet, which is unique in its kind, both in terms of the monkey motif and the framing of each engraving, an execution that we have never seen before.
Camilla Behrer, Camilla Behrer, Head of Modern Decorative Art and Design
Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, born in 1707 in Burgundy, was a French Enlightenment philosopher and naturalist known for his work "Histoire Naturelle". He was also a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the French Academy. Buffon has often been noted for his criticism of Carl von Linné's systematisation of nature. He significantly influenced the next generation of biologists, such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin.
Ernst Mayr, one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century, wrote that: "Buffon was indeed the father of all natural history thinking in the second half of the 18th century". He is considered to have been one of the first naturalists to recognise ecological succession but was later forced by the theology committee of the University of Paris to withdraw his theories on geological history and animal evolution because they conflicted with the biblical account of creation.
In recent years, from about 1941 and onwards, the cabinet has been in the home of the family of the businessman and financier Axel Wenner-Gren. The seller’s parents acquired it at Svenskt Tenn shortly after they married. The parents were both very interested in art and culture, the mother worked with silver and the father, who was a lawyer, went on to work for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Health Organization in the Congo, Persia and Korea, among other places.
The cabinet will be on sale during the autumn Modern Art + Design on 16 November. Estimate 2 000 000 – 2 500 000 SEK.
Viewing November 10–15, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Open Mon–Fri 11 am–6 pm, Sat–Sun 11 am–4 pm.
Auction Live November 16–17, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm
Requests & condition reports Contact category specialists
Stockholm
Björn Extergren
Head of Consignment and Sales Department, Fine Art. Specialist Antique Furniture, Decorative Arts and Asian Ceramics
+46 (0)706 40 28 61
Stockholm
Eva Seeman
Chief Specialist Modern and Contemporary Decorative art and design
+46 (0)708 92 19 69
Stockholm
Camilla Behrer
Head of Design/ Specialist Modern & Contemporary Decorative Art & Design
+46 (0)708 92 19 77
Stockholm
Jonatan Jahn
Head Specialist Contemporary and Modern Design
+46 (0)703 92 88 60
